So the day has finally arrived! My next album will be recorded today in two completely live sessions at 2pm & 7pm at the Oh Yeah Building, Belfast. To say I’m excited would be an understatement. This will the the culmination of so much hard work by a great many talented people:

Nick Fitzsimons: Drums
Marty Timlin: Upright Bass
Conor Scullion: Piano and Organ
Linley Hamilton: Trumpet
Angie McCrisken-O’Reilly: 1st Violin
Michael McMullan: 2nd Violin
Zarah Fleming: Cello
Ciara O’Neill: Vocals
Hornby: Guitar & Vocals
Amy McGarrigle: Vocals & Glockenspiel
Rich Dale: Vocals
Ben McAuley: Vocals

Rocky O’Reilly: Producer
Ben McAuley: Engineer
Barrett Lahey: Engineer
Lee McMahon: Monitors

Come along and help us make something special.

Just a reminder that the recordings will take place at the Oh Yeah Building on 3rd July and you can attend either the 2pm session or the 7pm session. Tickets cost £9 which includes entry to your chosen session and advance purchase of the completed album which will be sent to you as soon as mixing, mastering and pressing are completed. You will be credited in the liner notes and your copy of the album will be personalised by me.

One more reminder, tickets for these events are strictly limited so get ‘em while you can!

Tom

I’ll be doing an interview and session on the Vinny Hurrell show tonight at 7ish. Fo info on the show and how to listen, click here.

Tom

The three tracks from the forthcoming album are “The Ballad of Morton Candell”, “Flowers” and “A Personal Narrative of Life at Sea Part II”.

The session was engineers by the very talented Simon Mateer at My First Recorder Studio in Belfast.

I hope you enjoy!

Tom

“MUZU TV is a interactive music only platform website for artists and fans. It offers personal profiles, photos, personal channels, music videos, and FAN TV upload for free. MUZU TV protects the rights of music on the site and generates income by a shared advertising revenue with the music content owners including unsigned artists.”

Check out the site and see what you think for yourself.

The folks at Muzu TV are recording live performances of all the acts performing at this year’s Hard Working Class Heroes festival in Dublin. They were really nice people, very dedicated to making Muzu TV a success. The session went off without a hitch. I played a solo version of Fighter which we did in one take. I’m becoming a big believer in the power of the first take!

I’ve done so many sessions and what-not now and I’m starting to feel like a bit of a hack. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy doing them and I’m always grateful for the opportunity to perform my music to a wider audience but there’s definitely a loss of naivety about how these things work. I used to get so nervous about performing in front of cameras but now it’s more a case of “Okay, where do you want me to stand?”. The important thing is that when you go for a take you’re not going through the motions. I hope that day never comes for me but I see a lot of band s on TV who are clearly there already. And not just old bands either. That’s kind of depressing. This probably isn’t making any sense. I put that down to the Porterhouse cocktails. Go Dublin: we love you!

Some photographs:

In the Muzu TV beer garden.

Me and the hands of Muzu TV’s Marina Kenny.

Marina Kenny & I.

I just wanted to give a little update on the recording. We went into Start Together last Sunday as planned and laid down the drums and bass for “Private Rooms”, “The End of the Summer” and the new track I rehearsed with Nick a couple of days before the session. It’s provisionally titled, “Love is Hard on the Heart”.

I’m so happy with how it’s all sounding so far. Nick nailed the first two tracks in the first take. The man is a drumming legend. We took a bit of time with the new track, trying different approaches but in the end the take we used was very close to how Nick and I were playing it at our pre-recording practice. The recording has a great moody quality to it. I’m going to keep the arrangement sparse but I have a few ideas for some subtle additional instrumentation.

I’m already planning ahead to getting the next bunch of songs recorded. I guess I should finish these first though! Exciting times!

Here are a few more snaps: